Wednesday, February 10, 2010

In Which I Realize that I Still Have a Blog

Is it Wednesday already?

We're potty training. That has eaten up a lot of time since Saturday. She's halfway there, but she still refuses to "take the kids to the pool," if you know what I mean. I have done a lot of laundry. *sigh*

This is the worst part, the ABSOLUTE WORST PART of parenting for me. I can deal with labor, I can deal with breastfeeding, I can deal with being puked on, I can deal with tantrums, but I have a really hard time with excrement. Puke is one thing - they can't help it, and they usually feel so awful that my "poor baby" instincts override my "eeeewwww!" instincts. But with potty stuff? No. Not even a little.

And for whatever reason (probably high tech additives in Pampers that mask smells) changing diapers isn't as bad as changing pants.

Uggghhh.

So if you have any suggestions for how to get her to... you know... in the potty... Let me know. I've tried bribery. I've tried modeling. *sigh*

In other news, it snowed here, but not as much as they expected. Instead of doing the elliptical today, we're going to go outside and I'm going to shovel while the kids play. We'll see how long that lasts.

School has been canceled the last two days. Tomorrow is the class Valentine's day party, and MG is going to be crushed if school is called off again, so I hope the weather knocks it off. I'm ready for spring, anyway. This is ridiculous.

I always say that, and then I remember that spring is muddy, and I end up dealing with a lot of giant muddy dog footprints in my house. I'm ready for summer, I guess.

I spent a long time yesterday cleaning out closets and rearranging some of the stored baby clothes (no, that is not a pregnancy announcement). Now I have room to go shopping for new clothes that actually fit. I mentioned on Facebook that I'm totally intimidated by the idea of shopping for new clothes. I haven't figured out why, but it's probably residual shopping trauma brought on by years of being overweight. Going through the clothes, everything in my closet - even the dress pants that I'd kept in spite of the fact that they were too small - fit or was too big. Yay. I have several garbage bags full of clothes to take to Goodwill. If you want to go through them before I do, and you're local, let me know!

My cousins have been most entertaining lately. My cousin Brian is writing for a republican blog. This gives us all sorts of things to talk about! My cousin Tim is the lead in a play called The Pillowman that is getting rave reviews. If you're in Grammaland and you want to see it, it's at the CST downtown. You can e-mail me for details. (I'm deliberately leaving them out for privacy's sake). I wish I could make it up there to see it, but with this weather, I don't think I'll be able to make it.

I've started the class to train for the volunteer opportunity I mentioned last fall when I got all honked off about politics. It's two four hour classes per week for a month. That's a huge time commitment, but there's a lot to learn. I have to say, it feels good to be learning again! I feel like my brain has been atrophying for a while, now. And this is a sort of volunteering that I did before, when I lived in Indy in 1998, so it's mostly review. We'll see if I can handle it. I don't know...

I'm being deliberately vague again. Sorry. Faithful readers and people who know me in real life will know what I'm talking about, which is what I intend. I'm not allowed to talk about it. It wouldn't be good to blog about it, and then get fired for blogging about it before I even start.

Anyway, I hope you're enjoying your snow day! I guess it's time to get dressed and go work out shovel.

6 comments:

Madison is 2 1/2 and has been fully potty trained since she was about 2, with the exception of occasional night time accidents. I had a hard time getting her to poop in the potty too, until one day I told her that my tummy was hurting and that I had to go poop (I know, TMI, but everyone does it). Ever since that day, she has had no problem pooping in her potty. I don't know if this will help you out, but that's what worked for us!!

Wish I had advice on the potty training. My girls poop trained first. They didn't want to be messy. I'm actually watching a neighbor girl this afternoon who is potty training. She won't do that either. So her mom put a pull-up on her to come over here. Within 5 minutes she had gone in the pull-up. I discovered this while she was bouncing on one of those big balls with handles. this activity was a little more that the pull-up could handle. So in the first 10 minutes her she got a new outfit and I decided that her mom is not paying me enough today.

I hope the volunteering works out. I am hitting the point that I really need something where I feel like I am contributing to more than population increases. There is somewhere I have wanted to volunteer for a few years so I think next year will be the year. If Abby doesn't go to kindergarten she will at least be in preschool 4 days a week.

I hate shopping for clothes, too. I have two tactics that have made my task slightly easier over the years.

1) If I'm looking for something fairly specific, I'll do my research first on the Internet before going to the store. That way, I'll have some familiarity with current styles, prices, etc. and won't have to waste so much time meandering through multiple clothing departments.

2) I try to find a sales clerk who has the same clothing challenge I do. That clerk has already been keeping an eye out for pieces of clothing that might fit her, so it isn't too much of a stretch for her to find something similar for me. So whether your issue is being short-waisted, long-waisted, wide shoulders, narrow shoulders, or whatever, find a sales clerk who shares the same challenge.

We are in the same potty training boat - we've been off since Friday at noon and forgot to buy diapers. Forced the hand that needed forcing. As she had just stopped pooping completely and we were on day three, we put her in a pull up for nap and left it on until she did what needed done. We'll continue to fight the fight...